“Do I feel ancient to you now?" he murmered. "Too different from the person you loved before you knew this?" Her eyes were already glowing green, and her full lips parted. "No, you don't feel too ancient." Her voice was husky. "Or too different. You feel like mine. Whoever you were, whoever you are...you're mine." Mencheres smiled, his fangs stretching to their full length. "So you have spoken, so it shall be decreed. For all eternity.”

“You didn't think I really liked you? Do you think I really like you now?"He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face."You did go quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but... I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that."Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?"He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat.And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them.You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that."She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep”

“Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . .”

“You don't have to echo my feelings, Mencheres, but you can't talk me out of them either. I love you" Her smile was wry. "Deal with it.”

“Julia...do you feel how much you own me?" I moaned against the soft skin of her neck, her pulse beating wildly against my lips. So sweet and alive. "But you're mine. You own me, but you've always been mine.”

“She looked up into his face and asked him "What does it feel like to have someone so beautiful?" He looked down at her naive eyes and said "It feels like a wave from the sea. The wave crashes over you and you go under unaware of the surface above you. You forget about everything while your with her. And eventually you feel beautiful too.”